Page 35 of Light Me Up

Santi and I share a dark look through the rearview mirror.

“I’ll take whatever charges are necessary,” I say through gritted teeth.

“We’ll get it cleared. I assume you got the footage?” Santi grunts in response. “Very well. I’ll let you know once we’re ready.”

We hang up, and I consider what to tell Marco. He really had no problem assigning some shit like this to us. It would probably take hours to tear down those hotel room walls. And what if a neighbor heard and reported us?

I dial his number. “Son.”

“We’re here, but it’s taking some time. We’re doing this quietly so as not to call any attention to ourselves.”

“Excellent. Great work, both of you. Let me know when you’ve got it, and we’ll meet at Rowan’s.”

“You got it.”

“What’s the update on the rat?” Santi pipes in.Smart thinking.

“I haven’t heard from Ron yet, but I’m sure he’s working her. She’s holding up longer than I expected. Or she hasn’t come out of her drug stupor.” His laugh infuriates me, uncapping the lid on the always-simmering rage.

“We’ll let you know once we’ve gotten everything,” Santi says. I disconnect the call, resisting the urge to yell into the car.

“This is really some crazy shit,” Char mutters. “How did you guys get involved with the fucking FBI?”

“It’s a long story,” I say, but the truth of it is I don’t feel like getting into it right now. Not knowing if Kate was alive or okay, then seeing her like this… it’s completely shattered me. And I don’t care what Santi and Char say, it’s my fucking fault. Santi said it himself—I should have stayed the fuck away.

“Zo and I go way back,” Santi starts. “Since we were kids. Shit, toddlers, really. And there’s one reason for that—our fathers.

“They started selling weed and coke back in high school. As they got older, they got greedier. Hungrier for money, and the power it brings. They got into prescription drugs, heroin, the whole deal. Once they learned about fentanyl, they went hard. They got in when it was up and coming, so now they’re one of the largest distributors of that shit.”

“Isn’t fentanyl the stuff that gets laced into drugs?”

“Correct. Kills people too often,” Santi says with disdain. “It’s the exact reason we wanted to bring them down.”

“Long story short,” I jump in, wanting this story time to end. There’s already too much shit going on, and when Kate hears about this, I want it to be from my own mouth. “We contacted the FBI and requested to become informants so we could take them down. Turns out, they were already in the works of sending someone undercover. So it was a mutually beneficial agreement.”

“How long have you been working with them?” Char asks.

“Since December. Right before Zo met Kate, actually,” Santi says.

Char mulls that over. “So, all this time… that’s why you wouldn’t commit to her?”

“I told him from the jump not to get involved with Kate,” Santi says. “It wasn’t personal, we just didn’t need any liabilities. What if Marco and Rowan found out about what we were doing? I didn’t want blood on our hands.”

“Marco and Rowan have no problem putting someone in the grave, and they have the means to ensure it goes undetected,” I add, goosebumps coating my skin.

“Then we find out she knows the guy we ran off the road?” Santi shakes his head. “I mean, fuck, what are the goddamn chances of that?”

“She was supposed to meet him for a date that night, you know,” Char says quietly. When Santi's brows furrow, she adds, “Brad.”

Santi blows out a breath, and I stare at Kate's limp form. The entire reason we met is the result of one of one of my biggest regrets?

Life is fucked up.

When our silence extends into more silence, I resume stroking Kate’s hair and rest my head against the seat. None of us speaks for the rest of the car ride, lost to our own thoughts.

I want to explain everything to her, now that I’ll be a free man. Free from my father’s restraints. Free from the fear of being caught. Free from the guilt of what we’ve done.

All because he’ll be behind bars, and his distribution will no longer continue. I’m not naive; I’m sure other people will continue to sell this devil's poison. But I will no longer play a part in it.

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